Computer Engineering Commons^™

Cardbot, Jakob Reiter, Grant Crump, Drake Drivere, Adam Miner

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Many people enjoy playing cards but playing cards in the times of COVID-19 is difficult. There are many designs for dealing and shuffling robots, but few include sanitization and autonomous operation. This design is for a BlackJack card dealing and shuffling robot that will be autonomous and will sanitize the playing cards using UV-C LEDs. This will assist in keeping the user safe while playing a game of BlackJack

Magic: The Gathering Card Virtualizer, Vincent Garbonick, Jacen C. Conlan, Jaret A. Varn

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Any well-versed Magic: The Gathering (MTG) player or collector knows how difficult it can be to keep track of all cards in their collection. Some spend hours searching for that one specific card, and others are constantly scouring the internet for how much their collection costs. However, this issue does not only affect casual fans. Resale companies spend hours a day determining the costs of cards, and tournament judges painstakingly check players’ decks to ensure they are not cheating. To assist with these struggles, the design team proposed to create the MTG Card Virtualizer. This device scans MTG playing cards …

Lapnitor: A Web Service That Protects Your Laptop From Theft., Michael Ameteku

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Laptop theft is an issue worldwide. According to an article from 2018, Security Boulevard stated that a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds. Using a laptop's camera, we can monitor the surroundings of the laptop and reduce a laptop's probability of being stolen. According to the University of Pittsburgh, a laptop has a 1-in- 10 chance of being stolen and nearly half of these thefts occur in offices or classrooms. These thefts mostly occur when a laptop owner leaves their device unattended for a certain period of time to maybe go visit the restroom or attend to a call when …

Efficient And Accurate Cordic Pipelined Architecture Chip Design Based On Binomial Approximation For Biped Robot, Rih-Lung Chung, Yen Hsueh, Shih-Lun Chen, Patricia Angela R. Abu

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

Recently, much research has focused on the design of biped robots with stable and smooth walking ability, identical to human beings, and thus, in the coming years, biped robots will accomplish rescue or exploration tasks in challenging environments. To achieve this goal, one of the important problems is to design a chip for real-time calculation of moving length and rotation angle of the biped robot. This paper presents an efficient and accurate coordinate rotation digital computer (CORDIC)-based efficient chip design to calculate the moving length and rotation angle for each step of the biped robot. In a previous work, the …

Identifying Code Reading Strategies In Debugging Using Sta With A Tolerance Algorithm, Christine Lourrine S. Tablatin, Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to identify the common code reading strategies of the high and low performing students engaged in a debugging task. Using Scanpath Trend Analysis (STA) with a tolerance on eye tracking data, common scanpaths of high and low performing students were generated. The common scanpaths revealed differences in the code reading patterns and code reading strategies of high and low performing students. High performing students follow a bottom-up code reading strategy when debugging complex programs with logical and semantic errors. A top-down code reading strategy is employed when debugging programs with simple control structures, few …

Predicting Pair Success In A Pair Programming Eye Tracking Experiment Using Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis, Maureen M. Villamor, Maria Mercedes T. Rodrigo

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

Pair programming is a model of collaborative learning. It has become a well-known pedagogical practice in teaching introductory programming courses because of its potential benefits to students. This study aims to investigate pair patterns in the context of pair program tracing and debugging to determine what characterizes collaboration and how these patterns relate to success, where success is measured in terms of performance task scores. This research used eye-tracking methodologies and techniques such as cross-recurrence quantification analysis. The potential indicators for pair success were used to create a model for predicting pair success. Findings suggest that it is possible to …

Building An Understanding Of Human Activities In First Person Video Using Fuzzy Inference, Bradley A. Schneider

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Activities of Daily Living (ADL’s) are the activities that people perform every day in their home as part of their typical routine. The in-home, automated monitoring of ADL’s has broad utility for intelligent systems that enable independent living for the elderly and mentally or physically disabled individuals. With rising interest in electronic health (e-Health) and mobile health (m-Health) technology, opportunities abound for the integration of activity monitoring systems into these newer forms of healthcare. In this dissertation we propose a novel system for describing ’s based on video collected from a wearable camera. Most in-home activities are naturally defined by …

Secure Authenticated Key Exchange For Enhancing The Security Of Routing Protocol For Low-Power And Lossy Networks, Sarah Mohammed Alzahrani

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The current Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL) standard provides three security modes Unsecured Mode (UM), Preinstalled Secure Mode (PSM), and Authenticated Secure Mode (ASM). The PSM and ASM are designed to prevent external routing attacks and specific replay attacks through an optional replay protection mechanism. RPL's PSM mode does not support key replacement when a malicious party obtains the key via differential cryptanalysis since it considers the key to be provided to nodes during the configuration of the network. This thesis presents an approach to implementing a secure authenticated key exchange mechanism for RPL, which ensures …

Realistic Virtual Human Character Design Strategy And Experience For Supporting Serious Role-Playing Simulations On Mobile Devices, Sindhu Kumari

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Promoting awareness of social determinants of health (SDoH) among healthcare providers is important to improve the patient care experience and outcome as it helps providers understand their patients in a better way which can facilitate more efficient and effective communication about health conditions. Healthcare professionals are typically educated about SDoH through lectures, questionaries, or role-play-based approaches; but in today’s world, it is becoming increasingly possible to leverage modern technology to create more impactful and accessible tools for SDoH education. Wright LIFE (Lifelike Immersion for Equity) is a simulation-based training tool especially created for this purpose. It is a mobile app …

Design, Analysis, And Optimization Of Traffic Engineering For Software Defined Networks, Mohammed Ibrahim Salman

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Network traffic has been growing exponentially due to the rapid development of applications and communications technologies. Conventional routing protocols, such as Open-Shortest Path First (OSPF), do not provide optimal routing and result in weak network resources. Optimal traffic engineering (TE) is not applicable in practice due to operational constraints such as limited memory on the forwarding devices and routes oscillation. Recently, a new way of centralized management of networks enabled by Software-Defined Networking (SDN) made it easy to apply most traffic engineering ideas in practice. \par Toward creating an applicable traffic engineering system, we created a TE simulator for experimenting …

Automatically Generating Searchable Fingerprints For Wordpress Plugins Using Static Program Analysis, Chuang Li

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This thesis introduces a novel method to automatically generate fingerprints for WordPress plugins. Our method performs static program analysis using Abstract Syntax Trees (ASTs) of WordPress plugins. The generated fingerprints can be used for identifying these plugins using search engines, which have support critical applications such as proactively identifying web servers with vulnerable WordPress plugins. We have used our method to generate fingerprints for over 10,000 WordPress plugins and analyze the resulted fingerprints. Our fingerprints have also revealed 453 websites that are potentially vulnerable. We have also compared fingerprints for vulnerable plugins and those for vulnerability-free plugins.

Semantics-Driven Abstractive Document Summarization, Amanuel Alambo

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

The evolution of the Web over the last three decades has led to a deluge of scientific and news articles on the Internet. Harnessing these publications in different fields of study is critical to effective end user information consumption. Similarly, in the domain of healthcare, one of the key challenges with the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) for clinical practice has been the tremendous amount of clinical notes generated that can be summarized without which clinical decision making and communication will be inefficient and costly. In spite of the rapid advances in information retrieval and deep learning techniques towards …

Development Of Enhanced User Interaction And User Experience For Supporting Serious Role-Playing Games In A Healthcare Setting, Mark Lee Alow

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Education about implicit bias in clinical settings is essential for improving the quality of healthcare for underrepresented groups. Such a learning experience can be delivered in the form of a serious game simulation. WrightLIFE (Lifelike Immersion for Equity) is a project that combines two serious game simulations, with each addressing the group that faces implicit bias. These groups are individuals that identify as LGBTQIA+ and people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The project presents healthcare providers with a training tool that puts them in the roles of the patient and a medical specialist and immerses them in social and clinical …

Changeset-Based Retrieval Of Source Code Artifacts For Bug Localization, Agnieszka Ciborowska

Theses and Dissertations

Modern software development is extremely collaborative and agile, with unprecedented speed and scale of activity. Popular trends like continuous delivery and continuous deployment aim at building, fixing, and releasing software with greater speed and frequency. Bug localization, which aims to automatically localize bug reports to relevant software artifacts, has the potential to improve software developer efficiency by reducing the time spent on debugging and examining code. To date, this problem has been primarily addressed by applying information retrieval techniques based on static code elements, which are intrinsically unable to reflect how software evolves over time. Furthermore, as prior approaches frequently …

Deep Understanding Of Technical Documents : Automated Generation Of Pseudocode From Digital Diagrams & Analysis/Synthesis Of Mathematical Formulas, Nikolaos Gkorgkolis

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The technical document is an entity that consists of several essential and interconnected parts, often referred to as modalities. Despite the extensive attention that certain parts have already received, per say the textual information, there are several aspects that severely under researched. Two such modalities are the utility of diagram images and the deep automated understanding of mathematical formulas. Inspired by existing holistic approaches to the deep understanding of technical documents, we develop a novel formal scheme for the modelling of digital diagram images. This extends to a generative framework that allows for the creation of artificial images and their …

An Analysis Of Compressive Convolutional Autoencoders For Image Archiving In Medical Informatics, Charles Warren

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Within a given enterprise network, an array of data types needs to be communicated. These network transmissions consist of images, videos, text, and binaries that have unique requirements of bandwidth and computational overhead to transmit. With respect to medical informatics, these include a multitude of varying subjects, standards, and modalities which are communicated to and from imaging equipment, clinicians, and medical archives. To reduce the required bandwidth to transmit, or provide adequate storage capacity for archival purposes, the data may be compressed in such a way that reduces the size of the image when it is transferred or stored. The …

Development And Implementation Of Robot Operating Systems For Undergraduates, Chelsey Spitzner

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The purpose of this project was to create an undergraduate junior lab to teach students about Robotic Operating System (ROS). The labs were designed to highlight the usefulness of ROS and the process used. Designing algorithms, how to send/receive messages, and the hierarchy of how nodes work with each other are emphasized. Taking packages that are open-source then modifying them is also emphasized. This is done so that students can transfer their knowledge from this course to other robot operating systems.

Off Road Autonomous Vehicle Modeling And Repeatability Using Real World Telemetry Via Simulation, Matthew Paul Spencer

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

One approach to autonomous control of high mobility ground vehicle platforms operating on challenging terrain is with the use of predictive simulation. Using a simulated or virtual world, an autonomous system can optimize use of its control systems by predicting interaction between the vehicle and ground as well as the vehicle actuator state. Such a simulation allows the platform to assess multiple possible scenarios before attempting to execute a path. Physically realistic simulations covering all of these domains are currently computationally expensive, and are unable to provide fast execution times when assessing each individual scenario due to the use of …

Collective Hydrodynamics Of Robotic Fish, Rohit S. Pandhare

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Many animals in nature travel in groups either for protection, survival, or endurance. Among these, fish do so under the burden of hydrodynamic loads, which incites questions as to the significance of the multi-body fluid-mediated interactions that facilitate collective swimming. We study such interactions in the idealized setting of a rotational array of robotic fish whose tails undergo a prescribed flapping motion, but whose swimming speed is determined as a natural result of the hydrodynamic effects. Specifically, we examine how the measured collective speed of the swimmers varies with the imposed frequency and amplitude of their tail flapping, and with …

Adapting Deep Learning For Underwater Acoustic Communication Channel Modeling, Li Wei

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The recent emerging applications of novel underwater systems lead to increasing demand for underwater acoustic (UWA) communication and networking techniques. However, due to the challenging UWA channel characteristics, conventional wireless techniques are rarely applicable to UWA communication and networking. The cognitive and software-defined communication and networking are considered promising architecture of a novel UWA system design. As an essential component of a cognitive communication system, the modeling and prediction of the UWA channel impulse response (CIR) with deep generative models are studied in this work.

Firstly, an underwater acoustic communication and networking testbed is developed for conducting various simulations and …

A Simulation Of The Economic Impact Of Disaster Events, Richie Pajak

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Synthesizing Dysarthric Speech Using Multi-Speaker Tts For Dsyarthric Speech Recognition, Mohammad Soleymanpour

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder often characterized by reduced speech intelligibility through slow, uncoordinated control of speech production muscles. Automatic Speech recognition (ASR) systems may help dysarthric talkers communicate more effectively. However, robust dysarthria-specific ASR requires a significant amount of training speech is required, which is not readily available for dysarthric talkers.

In this dissertation, we investigate dysarthric speech augmentation and synthesis methods. To better understand differences in prosodic and acoustic characteristics of dysarthric spontaneous speech at varying severity levels, a comparative study between typical and dysarthric speech was conducted. These characteristics are important components for dysarthric speech modeling, …

Data Science Applied To Discover Ancient Minoan-Indus Valley Trade Routes Implied By Commonweight Measures, Peter Revesz

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

This paper applies data mining of weight measures to discover possible long-distance trade routes among Bronze Age civilizations from the Mediterranean area to India. As a result, a new northern route via the Black Sea is discovered between the Minoan and the Indus Valley civilizations. This discovery enhances the growing set of evidence for a strong and vibrant connection among Bronze Age civilizations.

Serum Protein Signatures Using Aptamer-Based Proteomics For Minimal Change Disease And Membranous Nephropathy, Daniel A. Muruve, Hanna Debiec, Simon T. Dillon, Xuesong Gu, Emmanuelle Plaisier, Handan Can, Hasan H. Otu, Towia A. Libermann, Pierre Ronco

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

Introduction: Minimal change disease (MCD) and membranous nephropathy (MN) are glomerular diseases (glomerulonephritis [GN]) that present with the nephrotic syndrome. Although circulating PLA2R antibodies have been validated as a biomarker for MN, the diagnosis of MCD and PLA2R-negative MN still relies on the results of kidney biopsy or empirical corticosteroids in children. We aimed to identify serum protein biomarker signatures associated with MCD and MN pathogenesis using aptamer-based proteomics.

Methods: Quantitative SOMAscan proteomics was applied to the serum of adult patients with MCD (n = 15) and MN(n = 37) and healthy controls (n = …

Evaluating The Factors Influencing Alignment Of It And Business In A Cloud Computing Environment, Dr. Shailja Tripathi

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Aligning IT with business strategically is the recent area of attention among researchers and practitioners because of its potential impact on organizational performance. Currently, large numbers of enterprises are migrating towards cloud computing as on-premise implementation of Information technology (IT) infrastructure is expensive. The purpose of this research is to examine the factors that influence the alignment of IT and business in cloud computing environment. Therefore, this study used the Strategic Alignment Maturity (SAM) model as a framework to validate the evolution of IT-business alignment in a cloud computing platform. A questionnaire-based survey method was employed for data collection. The …

Will Products Liability Litigation Help Protect Iot Users From Cyber-Physical Attacks?, J Royce Fichtner, Troy J. Strader

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

While there is an identifiable trend towards protecting consumers from data breaches and data misuses related to IoT devices through new legislation, new regulations, government enforcement actions, and private lawsuits, there has been little progress towards creating similar legally enforceable standards of care for “cyber-physical device security.” This article explores this underdeveloped area of academic inquiry into cyber-physical device security within the context of product liability litigation in the United States. The two questions addressed in this article are: (1) Have there been any successful products liability court decisions in the United States that have held IoT manufacturers liable for …

E-Payment Adoption In Saudi Arabia, Alexander N. Chen, Joseph Y. Thomas, Mark E. Mcmurtrey Ph.D., Michael E. Ellis

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Internet technology has influenced banking systems because of its capability to enhance the performance of financial operations. Several factors influence the adoption of new technology within the financial industry. Namely the customers’ perception of benefit, quality, Ease of Use, Security, Self-Efficacy, and Trust. However, various cultures and geopolitical issues influence technology adoption and are therefore worth further study. This paper focuses on the factors that influence the behaviors of Saudi Arabians and their adoption of e-payment systems. The paper shows the fundamental discoveries of an investigation examining the dispersion and the adoption of e-payment technology in …

Examining Factors Influencing Intention To Use M-Health Applications For Promoting Healthier Life Among Smartphone Users In Tanzania, Herman Mandari, Mahija Yahaya

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Deaths related with Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) have recently increases, similarly, development of mobile technologies have paved a way in which Smartphone users can use m-health applications to address high level of sedentary behaviours that relates to negative health consequences. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine factors which may influence generation Y who are Smartphone users to adopt m-health applications in controlling NCDs in Tanzania. TAM theory was extended with awareness, trust and perceived cost to develop a research conceptual model of this study. Google form was used to developed online questionnaire which was distributed through social media platforms to …

Proposed New Framework Scheme For Path Loss In Wireless Bodyarea Network, Israa Al_Barazanchi, Yitong Niu, Haider Rasheed Abdulshaheed, Wahidah Hashim, Ammar Ahmed Alkahtani, Elika Daghighi, Zahraa A. Jaaz, Shihab A. Shawkat

Iraqi Journal for Computer Science and Mathematics

Recent technical developments in wi-fi networking, microelectronic integration and programming,sensors and the Internet have enabled us to create and enforce a range of new framework schemes to fulfil thenecessities of healthcare-related wireless body area network (WBAN). WBAN sensors continually screen andmeasure patients’ indispensable signs and symptoms, and relay them to scientific monitoring for diagnosis. WBANhas a range of applications, the most necessary of which is to help patients suffering diseases to stay alive. The qualityinstance is the coronary heart implant sensor, whose video display unit monitors coronary heart sign and continuouslytransmits it. This setup eliminates the need for patients to …

Blockchain-Technology-Based Solutions For Iot Security, Israa Al-Barazanchi, Aparna Murthy, Ahmad Abdul Qadir Al Rababah, Ghadeer Khader, Haider Rasheed Abdulshaheed, Elika Daghighi, Yitong Niu

Iraqi Journal for Computer Science and Mathematics

After a long period of development, blockchain innovation has received much attention from scholarsand industry practitioners alike. This innovation allows the issuance of smart contracts, which are utilised to automateand execute deals amongst clients. Blockchain is also being used nowadays by a few IT applications as a specialisedfoundation. This technology also prevents the duplication of information similar to what is being done with Bitcoinand other cryptocurrencies. Specifically, Bitcoin records are virtually impossible to alter as this cryptocurrency isbeing traded amongst hundreds of thousands of servers. Therefore, to launch a successful attack, the aggressor shouldchange the Bitcoin records of 51% of …